Kigoma, Tanzania

It was dark and we were tired when we pulled into the junction at Kigoma. The GPS had been playing games with us and our map was all but useless so we spent the next half hour trying to find the town centre. Often in these towns there are no signs and all the roads look the same, and unfortunately no one could understand us so we drove round in circles and got nowhere. Eventually I enlisted the help of a cabby who we followed but he didn't even know where he was going and we finally go to the hotel we'd selected in the guidebook, it had been shutdown for renovations. We selected option 2 and by now our cabby had enlisted the help of 3 more locals, but driving down the dodgy roads the cabby first stalled and then became stuck in a ditch and he wasn't going anywhere. It was getting beyond a joke, we were hungry and just wanted bed, so we got the cabby to leave his car and dragged him in with another of his mates to direct us to the hotel. We eventually arrived and then he tried to charge us extra for his trouble, as far as I was concerned he was lucky to get anything. It was meat and rice from a can for dinner and then straight to bed.Kigoma is a spread out little town, sat right on the edge of Lake Tanganyika. Its setting is lovely, but itis more well known as a transit point en-route to the nearby chimpanzee inhabitated forests of Gombe Stream and Mahale. It is also renowned for its refugee camps, UN settlements and World Food Programme representatives dealing with the problems associated with the civil wars in nearby Burundi and DR Congo.We had decided to take a day out from driving as we had things to do in Kigoma. We spent the morning running errands, Kaz finally sorting out her tax issue. Karens back was still playing up, so whilst she had a rest, Paul, Susie and I drove the short distance to Ujiji to visit the Livingstone memorial. The story goes that when famous explorer Dr David Livingstone had presumably become lost on his adventures through Africa, a search party was sent to look for him and was headed by Morgan Stanley. After a year long expedition, Stanley finally caught up with Livingstone and upon meeting him uttered the legendary phrase "Dr Livingstone I presume". The memorial was located on the very spot this meeting took place, and we were glad we saw it despite it being laughably ordinary.Knowing we would be back on the road tomorrow, we stopped in to get fuel on the way back to the hotel. We asked for unleaded and with a weird grin the guy gestured they were all out. We tried the next fuel station, and got a similar answer before the guy explained that they had been without unleaded for sometime and it may be days before more arrived, apparently the wet weather and road conditions had stopped the trucks getting through. He said it was the same story all over town, but we decided to check for ourselves which only confirmed what he had said. It was only now that we pieced together the events in Mpanda and suddenly we realised we could be in deep s***, "we could be stuck here for weeks". It was several hundred kilometres to the next town, and it was more than likely they were having the same fuel dilemma. Even if we could get to further a field to Rwanda, there were rumours that the Kenyan crisis had resulted in further fuel shortages there and in Uganda, but then there was no way of getting reliable information about this.We made our way back to the hotel to think the situation over. Unfortunately, the vast majority of vehicles in town ran on diesel, for which there was ample supply, so we were doubtful of even bribing someone to siphon us some fuel. I spoke to the girl at the reception desk and explained our issue, but she seemed unaware of the fuel crisis, so I kept badgering her until she approached another colleague. He then did some enquiring of his own and made a few calls but eventually came back with the answer that if we were able to get some it would most likely be extremely expensive and mixed with diesel. I asked him to find out some more details and get back to me.A short while later he was back with a friend who said he knew a guy that may be able to help us out. He said it would cost us though and agreed to take us to see him. Boner and I, escorted by the fuel man and 2 of his buddies let us past the industrial zone to a small village/shanty on the edge of the lake. Fuel man disappeared with his phone to his ear leaving us with his cronies. He returned with a small entourage and we were told there was more than enough fuel and so we began entering into negotiations over the price. He would tell us a ridiculous price and then when we responded he would wander off and discuss it before returning with a new price and stating that they would be "very disappointed with anything less. With so many people around him we had no idea who was negotiating, and as time went on even more bystanders appeared to see what the mzungus were doing in their hood. Eventually we agreed a deal for 100L, the price was 50% higher than the bowser price but we had no idea when we would next be able to fill up. On agreeing the deal Boner was told to wait with the car, and I was led to a dark mudbrick warehouse somewhere in the village. It was almost completely dark in side, but the doorway allowed enough light to penetrate for me to see the stacks of 44Gallon drums sat against the wall. I quizzed the guys about the fuel and apparently they had shipped it in from Burundi for use in their boats, whether it was legit or not I'm unsure. A small posse supervised whilst I made sure they filled the jerry cans to the top, but the main thing that was concerning me was the fact that they were using their mobile phones as lights so they could see what they were doing. I knew that mobiles were forbidden to be used at fuel stations due to potential ignition of the vapours, but even though I was getting partially high on the fumes myself standing a couple of metres away, these guys were dangling their phones only inches from the pour. Eventually, we walked out of the shed alive and with five jerry cans of fuel, potentially disproving the phone theory. By now there were grins on all the guys faces, they knew it was payday and they were enjoying raping us of our hard earned cash. They laughed away and joked that we had bought enough fuel to get us to "Lusaka" (Zambia) which was probably a few 1000kms away, I don't think they could comprehend how thirsty Kal the landrover was, getting less than 6km/L.We loaded up the car and after a sneaky slide of hand we were on our way back to the hotel. It had cost us a small fortune but as ive said before, cash is king in Africa and as long as you are willing to pay you can usually get what you want. It was Valentines day and thanks to the blokes from the shipyard we were on our way. It was an extremely unromantic day spent sat in the car, and by late afternoon we had stamped out of Tanzania and were crossing into Rwanda.